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It should surprise no one that quantum software companies that do not build hardware will flop. It does not matter if it founded by famous Harvard scientists.

It should surprise no one that quantum software companies that *do not build hardware* will flop. It does not matter if it founded by famous Harvard scientists. Hell, even quantum hardware companies are having a really hard time building a functioning quantum computer, let alone a useful one. Setting aside whether it's worth investing in "Quantum" stock at all, it is quite simply silly to invest in anything "Quantum" if they aren't building actual quantum hardware. Zapata's PR stunts like "Quantum AI" race cars looks all the more comedically delusional now. Though I'm sure no one's learned a lesson from this. No I am not joking, I wish I could make something like this up: https://www.digitalengineering247.com/article/zapata-ai-andretti-indycar-gear-up-for-ai-race-day-strategy https://www.digitalengineering247.com/article/zapata-ai-andr...

baxtr 2y ago
These guys will probably be able to raise capital for their next startup easily because "second time founders are the best"!
freetonik 2y ago
I'm biased because I work at a full-stack quantum computing company (we produce chips and software), but I agree. Quantum software-only companies are sometimes... strange. Most QC hardware purchases today are made by either purely research institutions (universities, labs, etc.) or research departments of commercial entities. Either way, there are usually public tender descriptions or private lists of requirements. When you look at public tenders, you will often find seemingly arbitrary software integration requirements like "the QC must support quantum circuit compilation with ABC", where 'ABC' is some product of some quantum software company you never heard of. Then you go research that library, and if you're lucky it's open source, so you dive into their code and realize it's another attempt at building a "universal" standard for some layer of the QC stack, based on some research paper out of some university. The developers of that library would often claim that, despite them having no QC hardware of their own, they can build better software for arbitrary QCs. It's strange and unlikely to be true simply because there is no such thing as standard or even common quantum hardware. There is rarely interoperability between architectures (and I'm only talking about superconducting quantum computers, not other kinds). And then you have to either comply and tackle a huge integration project, or convince the buyer that the software you have written for your own hardware is actually better suited for your hardware than software written by people who never seen your hardware.
- baxtr 2y ago
  I have a bit of a strange question for you: as a physicist I sometimes really wonder if quantum computing will ever work. Any chance you could elaborate on that? I guess you’re biased but still love to hear your thoughts.
  - freetonik 2y ago
    Since nothing in the known laws of physics explicitly prohibit it, I think it's safe to say that quantum computing will some day work, in the same sense that nuclear fusion or interstellar human travel may work. Unlike e.g. faster-than-light travel, which will probably not work. But in practice? On Earth, with our human society and economics? Hell, I don't know... One pessimistic view is that QCs, being such complex and expensive engineering projects, will always be like flying cars: useful in theory, but other solutions are "good enough" and are cheaper. Quantum computers have to really, really advance a lot before they can actually solve problems better, cheaper, and/or faster than classical computers. The danger is that funding will end before we reach that point. Another important point is that most progress seems to be in specifically superconducting quantum computers (IBM and the company I work at both produce QCs of this type). Superconducting QCs are very hard to scale; it's an incredibly difficult task to scale from hundreds of physical qubits (best chips today) to thousands/millions (necessary for error correction). I'd say it's more difficult than the task of colonizing the solar system. But there are other approaches to building quantum computers. One promising theoretical idea is topological QC [1]. Microsoft is betting on this; it it works, it may make superconducting QCs idea obsolete, like transistors made vacuum tubes obsolete. I keep comparing QCs with interstellar travel because it's equally hard to answer questions about the possibility of the latter when human seemingly still can't figure out how to stop killing each other. Anyway, I think humans made impossible things possible in the past. Splitting the atom, sending probes to other planets, landing on the moon, discovering new particles, etc. So I'm optimistic in general. P.S. I gave a talk on quantum computing hardware & software recently; the organizers uploaded it to YouTube as unlisted, and want to make it public later. If anyone's interested, send me an email to hello[at]rakhim.org, and I'll send you the link. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_quantum_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_quantum_computer
aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
The only legitimate quantum computing market in the 2020s is providing access to researchers on the theory/algorithms side. Sadly there is enormous illegitimate market involving naive VCs who have read too much sci-fi and are easily spooked by nonsense like "the NSA uses a powerful quantum computer for cryptographic superposition" or "what if the Chinese out-quantums Google? We call this a Heisenberg Arms Race and it requires lots of money."

It should surprise no one that quantum software companies that *do not build hardware* will flop. It does not matter if it founded by famous Harvard scientists.

baxtr 2y ago

These guys will probably be able to raise capital for their next startup easily because "second time founders are the best"!

freetonik 2y ago

I'm biased because I work at a full-stack quantum computing company (we produce chips and software), but I agree. Quantum software-only companies are sometimes... strange. Most QC hardware purchases today are made by either purely research institutions (universities, labs, etc.) or research departments of commercial entities. Either way, there are usually public tender descriptions or private lists of requirements. When you look at public tenders, you will often find seemingly arbitrary software integration requirements like "the QC must support quantum circuit compilation with ABC", where 'ABC' is some product of some quantum software company you never heard of. Then you go research that library, and if you're lucky it's open source, so you dive into their code and realize it's another attempt at building a "universal" standard for some layer of the QC stack, based on some research paper out of some university. The developers of that library would often claim that, despite them having no QC hardware of their own, they can build better software for arbitrary QCs. It's strange and unlikely to be true simply because there is no such thing as standard or even common quantum hardware. There is rarely interoperability between architectures (and I'm only talking about superconducting quantum computers, not other kinds). And then you have to either comply and tackle a huge integration project, or convince the buyer that the software you have written for your own hardware is actually better suited for your hardware than software written by people who never seen your hardware.

baxtr 2y ago
I have a bit of a strange question for you: as a physicist I sometimes really wonder if quantum computing will ever work. Any chance you could elaborate on that? I guess you’re biased but still love to hear your thoughts.
- freetonik 2y ago
  Since nothing in the known laws of physics explicitly prohibit it, I think it's safe to say that quantum computing will some day work, in the same sense that nuclear fusion or interstellar human travel may work. Unlike e.g. faster-than-light travel, which will probably not work. But in practice? On Earth, with our human society and economics? Hell, I don't know... One pessimistic view is that QCs, being such complex and expensive engineering projects, will always be like flying cars: useful in theory, but other solutions are "good enough" and are cheaper. Quantum computers have to really, really advance a lot before they can actually solve problems better, cheaper, and/or faster than classical computers. The danger is that funding will end before we reach that point. Another important point is that most progress seems to be in specifically superconducting quantum computers (IBM and the company I work at both produce QCs of this type). Superconducting QCs are very hard to scale; it's an incredibly difficult task to scale from hundreds of physical qubits (best chips today) to thousands/millions (necessary for error correction). I'd say it's more difficult than the task of colonizing the solar system. But there are other approaches to building quantum computers. One promising theoretical idea is topological QC [1]. Microsoft is betting on this; it it works, it may make superconducting QCs idea obsolete, like transistors made vacuum tubes obsolete. I keep comparing QCs with interstellar travel because it's equally hard to answer questions about the possibility of the latter when human seemingly still can't figure out how to stop killing each other. Anyway, I think humans made impossible things possible in the past. Splitting the atom, sending probes to other planets, landing on the moon, discovering new particles, etc. So I'm optimistic in general. P.S. I gave a talk on quantum computing hardware & software recently; the organizers uploaded it to YouTube as unlisted, and want to make it public later. If anyone's interested, send me an email to hello[at]rakhim.org, and I'll send you the link. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_quantum_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_quantum_computer

aithrowawaycomm 2y ago

The only legitimate quantum computing market in the 2020s is providing access to researchers on the theory/algorithms side. Sadly there is enormous illegitimate market involving naive VCs who have read too much sci-fi and are easily spooked by nonsense like "the NSA uses a powerful quantum computer for cryptographic superposition" or "what if the Chinese out-quantums Google? We call this a Heisenberg Arms Race and it requires lots of money."